Chapter 1

"You know when you look in the mirror and you say, wow I'm really ugly and then you look back in the mirror and you connect the dots and realize the only way you will ever be successful is if you kill people."

"What?" Maya wonders bewildered as if she has never done that before. "You know what I mean!" "Lexi!" Mrs. Moore shouts in front of the class "would you like to share your comments with the class?"

"I was just saying that school won't help me with what I want to do in the future that's all." "and what might that be?" she asks with a smirk. "You don't want to know," I mumbled before hiding my head beneath my desk.

"Please pay attention to the board Lexi, it's in your best interest," she announced before blabbing on and on about cellular respiration which I purposefully pushed out of my brain upon leaving the premises.

"What were you saying about killing people?" Maya asked as we both walked each other home. "Nothing, forget I mentioned it." "what did you mean by it?" "nothing I spaced

out again." "you've been doing that a lot lately" "it's just, that life feels so pointless. What if I don't want to be an overachiever and just live under a bridge like a hobo?" "you want to be a hobo?"

"I want to be carefree." Maya stops suddenly gazing at a group of boys in a truck whistling loudly at the over-sexualized women on a billboard. "Well, when I group up" Maya exclaimed, "I want to be one of the women on the billboard!" "why?" I asked, "Because they have everything I want, beauty, fame, and riches!"

"Why do you want all that?" "who doesn't!" "me." "Yeah, well you've always been weird Lex." "hey, I take that as a compliment, catch you later May!" I shouted before going our separate ways home. The sidewalk was quiet as a bright orange sunset beamed into my eyes enticing me to walk faster as the street lights were soon to come on.

The closer I moved to the house the more I wanted to watch murder documentaries and light matches in my room. My feet moved faster as my house was just in view. Closer and closer I ran. Until an angry car blocks the neighbor's driveway "STOP RUNNING!" the man shouted out his car window. "Who are you?" I asked promptly "The man who does not have time for this!" "what did I do?"

"You ruin our society with your teenage this and teenage that, can't you just be a sweet kid who obeys the law?" "look mister I don't know who you are or who you think you're talking to, but you have no right to speak to a minor in that way especially one you don't know!" I yelled before he drove off. I stopped to take a picture of his license plate before running inside.

"Hey, mom!" "sh! Lexi, I'm on a business call." "sorry." I mouthed before running up to my room. My sanctuary, my true being. Covered in true crime posters and flattened out matchboxes was the place I felt truly free to be. A place that not even my parents would understand because I don't allow them in.

I plopped my backpack solemnly on the bed before skipping toward my desk. I began to sketch my school and all of the people I hated within it I used a bright red marker for their eyes and a bright orange marker for the fire I will set on them.

My mind went blank for a few moments wondering what it would be like to just sit in the center of a ring of the fire watching as my classmates died around me one by one. As they suffered I would laugh in contentment as they did to me every day of my life.

I had never had a friend in my life, the only person I have grown close to is myself. When being alone with your thoughts you have an awful lot of time to think up things that you may not have in your life like friends.

Maya isn't real, but she is to me. She is the person I want to be but never will. Sometimes I invite Maya to my house but My parents often judge me for it by saying that I'm crazy just talking to thin air, so I avoid doing that at all costs.

I grabbed a box of matches from my side table and began to burn the drawing allowing the ashes to fly out my bedroom window sometimes, the ashes would form letters in the wind before blowing away. I thought of the test tomorrow and asked the paper what my grade was going to be before burning it.

I gazed desperately out the window watching the ashes form the letter D before quickly falling to the ground.

The paper was usually right and I had no good sense to question it.

…

A loud bang the next morning woke me up in a hurry, it was a shotgun.

Followed by a loud scream. I hid beneath my covers wondering what was going on. The house fell silent before I decided to call out "Mom! Dad! Are you ok!" suddenly large

sounding footsteps jog quickly up the steps into my room. Two big bulky men dressed in black armor grabbed me by my armpits and hoisted me out of bed.

"Are you Lexi?" one said with a deep voice. "Yes sir.." I replied timidly before letting a stream of tears run down my face. "You're coming with us he announced before carrying me out of the room. I began to scream out for help when a small white cloth covered my face causing me to doze off.